You Say Bologna; I Say Baloney

RST: A retired president said something to me the other day, Gordon.

EGG: Was it, “How did you get Gordon Gee to work with you? We all know that he is senile”?

RST: No. They said the first time they saw this column, the response was “Why him?” There were a lot of other out-to-pasture leaders who would have liked to spout off in this space.

EGG: That is because they don’t know how bossy and irritating you are.

RST: I save most of that for you. From our first conversation, it was clear you were my guy. Partly because of your ability to crack wise and get yourself into trouble (not that I can relate), partly because you’ve led the ocean liners of higher ed, partly because you’ve been at both publics and privates, but mostly because, unlike many in our biz, you take the work but not yourself seriously.

EGG: Thanks for coming to my defense. And, in the spirit of mutual admiration, I have been reading your columns for some time. You are a brilliant writer and so curious about everything. Unlike so many of our faculty colleagues, you are not afraid to ask questions, even if they may appear naïve or “dumb.”

RST: I am the queen of dumb questions. Last month, we were both invited to a conference for current presidents to do different sessions. After I sat through yours, I said I had to fire you.

EGG: And I said you can’t fire me. You are my boss for life.

RST: I had never seen you speak before an audience. I warned the organizers that I am better, smarter and way funnier on the page than I am in person. It turns out, the opposite is true for you. I learned never to share a stage or public platform with you.

EGG: Truthfully, they came to hear you, so I was just eye candy, which shows how desperate I am for attention.

RST: Yes, you are my trophy work wife. Instead of getting all serious now, it’s summer after another shit show of a year and everyone needs some fun. Let’s talk about the ways higher ed is stuck in the past. Gordon, you say Bologna, I say baloney. We’re no longer in the 11th century with the founding of that first university. Which antiquated rituals of higher ed make you giggle?

EGG: At graduation, the costumes that people wear! They are fun, colorful, distinctive and hotter than hell. And it is challenging without a break. At my very last commencement, as I was walking off the dais, my pants started to fall down. Fortunately, Laurie had come to my swan song and could see that I was walking like a penguin. I told her that my pants had fallen down and she kept my robe hiding the moment.

RST: “The moment.” By that you mean, flashing the community. Thank you, Laurie. 💕

EGG: You know that a lot of students come across the podium with hardly anything underneath because of the heat. I am now more sympathetic.

RST: We both married well later in life.

EGG: It takes very special people to put up with us. But that does remind me of an issue that gets little attention in this hypercritical world, and that is the tremendous strain public life is on the family. You have talked about it, but I have witnessed it among so many of my colleagues and personally. People, late at night after a few drinks, sitting in their pajamas, can be so cruel when they go on social media. We are talking about amusing things in the academic environment in this column, but none of us should forget that it is harsh to find humor at the expense of others, particularly the innocent bystanders who most often are family members.

RST: The stories I hear about what presidents’ partners and children experience give me nightmares. We made a recent Sandbox issue, titled “The President as Pain Sponge,” available for everyone to read, because most have no idea how brutal and personal the attacks are. In some ways, the culture of higher ed has changed and become less civil. And in other ways, we cling (often ridiculously) to the past. We have these rites where everyone dons robes and funny hats and carries maces. (What is a mace?) It’s like we’re advertising the fact that we reject modernity.

EGG: The whole robe-and-mace thing seems antiquated, but this I know: Parents love to see kids get their degree; sometimes it’s a moment of sheer joy. And gives those of us in the academy a chance to pretend that we are different, unique and really smart.

RST: So smart. This leads to my rants about academic writing, about which I’ve been complaining for 30 years. In many cases, disciplinary jargon serves as cosplay for trivial ideas. The inscrutability of much academic prose is one of the things that makes the public not value what we do. Bad writing tries to hide bad thinking. Badly.

EGG: Oh my, this is a three-alarm fire. All our environmentally attuned colleagues have no problems killing tons of trees unnecessarily in order to write some obscure screed that no one reads.

RST: As a recovering acquisitions editor, I am guilty of perpetrating senseless tree killing.

EGG: But they have to do that in order to say they are “legitimate“ academics. I applaud and truly cherish good scholarship, but little of that exists.

RST: I’m not sure that little exists (I still believe in science, for example), but that the pressure to pump out stuff means the ratio of signal to noise is way too low.

EGG: What we should do when we are judging research faculty is to say that we only want one or two things they produced to be presented, and we want to know the impact of them on the discipline and also the communities they are serving.

RST: And to do it in a way that people outside of the discipline can understand. We don’t need sentences that go on for days or gargantuan books.

EGG: Guilty—I have written multiple law books that are well over a thousand pages. At least they make for good doorstops.

RST: Or for you to stand on to reach the high cabinets in the kitchen. I’ve long said that no matter the discipline, I should be able to read the abstract, intro and conclusion to any paper and understand why it matters.

EGG: I do not know why we have developed this ironclad notion that you have to write and publish in order to be a “true” academic. We can all take pride and applaud those truly remarkable works which have come from research and discovery in universities, but it has become a Pilgrim’s Progress for so many. Let us admit that so much of what is researched and written does not advance knowledge but only advances ego and promotion.

RST: Yepper. The rewards system is a mess. Another thing that gets me is the affection for titles. I know many academics love to be addressed as “Doctor,” because they feel they earned the respect the title accords. I think you should get respect for what you say and how you act. I mean, it’s not like we’re saving people’s lives. (Though, now that I think about it, we actually are: As Frederick Douglass showed us, education is the pathway from slavery to freedom.) Still, President Emeritus Gee, the pomposity drives me bonkers.

EGG: We all need our moment in the sun. People have labored in the academic fields and deserts very long, so let them have the opportunity to be recognized. I know that many folks laughed at Jill Biden insisting that she be called “Doctor,” but to me she earned that right. I still like being addressed as “Your Highness” and on occasion wearing my academic robes to bed.

RST: OMG. You are a little magpie and keep stealing all my shiny things. The other day you told me about the “funnest” corporate board you ever served on. You stole “funnest” from me! I forgave you when you told me why it was so great. For five years you sat next to your friend Dolly Parton. Can we please go see her? Please! But getting back to your thievery, you know Siri calls me “Your Highness.” Otherwise, I believe in parity of address.

EGG: Well, I call you “boss.”

RST: OK, here’s something else: Colleges and universities love to describe themselves as future-oriented while still running on a calendar designed for another era. Why do we still have summers off? So students can go work in the fields? How does that help them get into the jobs they need now?

EGG: Rachel, stop with this grievance stuff. While students are laboring away making fudge at Rehoboth Beach in order to pay for their four years of tuition and faculty are spending time inspecting cathedrals in Europe—

RST: You talking about the fact that I just got back from Tuscany? Low blow, dude. I was, um, working!

EGG: —the rest of the world is moving forward at an incredible rate of change. If universities were Amazon, you would get the package you ordered today in time for Christmas. Taking time for a summer respite is built on the agrarian model and is the most blatant example of the failure of change in universities. We build these magnificent buildings that stay mostly empty for three months during the summer. The academic calendar for the majority of universities is an immense waste of resources, both in time to completion for students and in faculty and staff efforts.

RST: Except that trip to Tuscany was really fun, Gordon. And I did a ton of writing on the plane. But perhaps the most sacred absurdity, the things that seem the most “modern,” are the meetings to plan meetings, then subcommittees to refine the minutes of the meetings, then committees to discuss and vote on and amend the changes. All of which slows things down to a pre-industrial pace of change.

EGG: What you just described is the height of absurdity and of time wasted. It is also a critical component tied to the notion of shared governance. We are at institutions designed to talk and talk and then get together and talk again often about the most mundane issues. Rachel, how many times do you hear from faculty that the university is being corrupted by adopting “management principles”? Universities are unusual animals, no doubt, but the heavy hand of tradition is slowly but certainly squeezing the life from the university, where fewer will be standing and even fewer thriving because “this is the way we do things.”

RST: This is the way we do things. Plus ça change. (Yes, we also spent some time in France last week.)

EGG: Well, we started out trying to be amused by some of the silly and fun things we do in our academic endeavors. And there is a lot to laugh about. But our conversation evolved into recognizing that many of the “fun” things we do actually are no longer laughable. There is a tragic side to universities that is nearly Shakespearean.

RST: We move with all deliberate speed, the emphasis being on deliberate. But as you and I both know, many institutions are playing “Nearer, My God, to Thee” while their ship is sinking fast.